As a port, CCS2 is backwards compatible to CCS1. You can take a CCS1 (J1772) cable and plug it into a car with a CCS2 port. And yes, the J1772 (CCS1) is by far the standard connector in the US market. I see that connector everywhere.

And yes, Elon could easily say "Tesla is moving all production to CCS2, all future Teslas manufactured after today will be CCS2, all Supercharger stations will be retrofitted with CCS2 cables" and we would be living in that standard where pretty much every car on the road can receive power at pretty much every car charging station. Pretty much every car in the US sold with CHAdeMO also supports CCS1 (J1772), I don't know of a single model which doesn't. We don't live in this world because Elon would prefer for everyone to be locked into proprietary cables and a proprietary network. This is the *only reason* why. Sure, things were different 10 years ago when CCS was barely even on paper. As it stands in the market where I live there's many more CCS chargers around than Superchargers, and many more J1772 cables (going by data from https://www.plugshare.com/ ). And yet articles like this tell everyone that this is not the case, that if you buy a non-Tesla you're not going to be able to have any luck charging it out in the world, so no point in buying anything that's not a Tesla.

> It's a straw man because no one is saying "it's preferable for consumers for Tesla to have a proprietary connector". And it's not Tesla's desire for a proprietary network to support its EV sales that causes fast charging to be a disaster in the US for non-Teslas.

By buying a Tesla you're supporting the notion that proprietary connections are good. You're choosing to buy a car with a proprietary connector. You agree earlier that Tesla wouldn't move to an industry standard unless they were forced by regulators, and yet you also think they're not purposefully pushing their proprietary connector for vendor lock-in reasons. It seems you're trying to argue it both ways; that clearly it would be better for the consumer to have an industry standard connector and yet its a good thing for Tesla to continue to push their proprietary one continuing to split the market. You're supporting a proprietary connector and pushing for that in the market while suggesting that nobody is pushing for proprietary connectors. How is what I'm saying a straw man?

I do agree fast charging is a disaster due to poor investment by the incumbent auto industry. They were hoping the 3rd party market for DC fast chargers would grow faster. A lot of 3rd parties have been slow to roll it out due to not having as much capital and not having as much of a market to cater to, as a good percentage of electrics being made and sold today in the US are Teslas. But, don't you think if Tesla supported CCS2 we'd see a ton more third party CCS2 chargers spring up? Currently third parties are completely unable to build Tesla charging stations. You can buy a Tesla charger and freely offer it to your customers (and try and shoo away moochers), but you cannot build your own to sell electricity. There isn't a 3rd party market for Tesla chargers, all Tesla chargers exist to push the Tesla brand and push vendor lock in. Sure, you can use an adapter to plug in a J1772, but you'll never be able to use a CCS2 cable for fast charging and we're really talking about fast charging here. On top of that, I've known a few Tesla owners who were unaware they could use an adapter to plug in to J1772 ports; they saw the cables were different and assumed it didn't work.

An answer to the vendor lock-in exists today. Tesla can switch at any time. Continuing to support Tesla is continuing to support vendor lock-in. But they won't, because then articles like TFA won't scare people away from looking at anything other than a Tesla.